


fluid like water

by brattyloser



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: F/F, F/M, Genderfluid Character, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-06 09:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1853179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brattyloser/pseuds/brattyloser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gender is a complex thing. It’s part of a person’s identity, abstract and nebulous and infinite, and Michael is starting to figure out that he’s not satisfied with the one he was given.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fluid like water

It starts with a bow.

Barbara pulls it over his head and the elastic stings when it snaps against his skull, but he lets her fiddle with it all the same. It isn't a calculated move on her part, purely spur of the moment, and he never does know why she does it in the first place, but he lets her adjust the white fabric in his curls and makes a petulant face when she takes a photo. She skips away after that, her antics over and the bow still in his hair.

Then he forgets about it, to be honest. He's too busy editing a video and the white fabric nestled among his curls sort of slips his mind. It’s only when he finishes editing and leans back in his chair does he catch his reflection in one of his monitors and remembers. He tilts his head one way, then the other, and decides that it looks pretty cute on him tucked to one side and peeking out from his curls, so he leaves it like that for the rest of the day.

When Ray asks him what’s with the new accessory, Michael shrugs. He tells Ray that he looks cute as fuck with it on. He means it to. He looks really cute. He _feels_ really cute. Ray drops it after that and goes back to his desk.

The bow only leaves his hair when Lindsay enters the main office later in the afternoon, ready to head home. She giggles and pulls the accessory from his curls with deft fingers. He pouts. She kisses his cheek. He feels a little less cute, a little less content, but he brushes the feeling away.

Next is a headband.

It’s black and has roses that flower on one side. It’s Lindsay’s; she has a few accessories lying around, but this one catches Michael’s eye while he’s brushing his teeth. He picks it up off the bathroom sink and shoves it on his head, toothpaste froth dripping from his mouth. He checks his reflection in the mirror. The headband goes well with his Achievement Hunter hoodie, he thinks, so he wears it to work.

Ryan raises an eyebrow when Michael walks into the office, asks him if he lost a bet. Michael hunches up his shoulders and glares. He fights the heat tinging his ears pink and just glares. Ryan raises his hands in a placating gesture and takes a step back. He’s sorry he asked, he says. When he turns to head back to the kitchen for another cup of coffee he adds that Michael looks nice, bet or not.

That makes Michael feel good, because he does feel nice. He feels so nice that he almost takes Ryan off his shitlist for the day. Almost.

The third day it’s barrettes.

Arryn has them pinned in her hair to keep the strands out of her face, but Michael eyes them all morning. They’re pretty, the way they glint in the light when she walks past him on the way to the recording booth. He wonders how they would look on him. Instead of asking if he can try them on, Michael bites his tongue and tries to ignore the fascinating twinkling of jewel-lined hair clips.

He must have been doing a terrible job because when he and Arryn are both in the kitchen right after lunch, she wordlessly plucks two of the barrettes out of her hair and offers them to Michael. He looks at the pins and then looks at her face, confusion etching into his features. She smiles warmly and puts them in for him, pinning his curls to one side. She tells him she wants them back by the end of the day.

Michael doesn’t look at his reflection until she leaves. The moment she rounds the corner he inspects himself in the reflection of the cappuccino machine. The barrettes wink at him in the metallic surface.

The next day Michael doesn’t feel like bows and headbands and barrettes.

He feels rough and inelegant and wears a beanie over his curls and a sleeveless tee under his hoodie.

No says anything to him that day.

A week passes. Michael keeps wearing beanies and hoodies, bows and barrettes seemingly forgotten, and nothing seems to have changed.

Lindsay catches Michael trying on her bra one night.

The straps are kind of loose and the cups don’t fit right at all, but he makes kissy faces and various poses at his reflection. Then he sees Lindsay’s sleepy face looking at him in the mirror. To be fair, it is three in the morning and he has left the bathroom door wide open.

She doesn’t say anything at first; she just leans against the doorframe and stares. Michael practically shrinks in on himself and can’t find the words to explain what he’s doing.

Well, he can explain _what_ he is doing – he’s wearing her underwear in the middle of the night – he just can’t say why. He had gotten up to pee and saw the bra. He had toed it once while washing his hands. It was lacy and red, so he prodded it again before picking it up. It was pretty – undeniably _feminine –_ and he had wanted to try it on. Once. Just real quick. But real quick turned out to be longer than he planned and he tries not to meet Lindsay’s steadfast gaze in the mirror.

She’s the first one to make a move, taking a step forward with his name falling from her lips. Michael flinches. Her fingers are cold as she fiddles with the strap, adjusting them so they don’t fall off his shoulders. When she’s satisfied with the fit, she wraps her arms around his middle and rests her chin on his shoulder. They both look at him in the mirror, image refracted back in the water-stained surface under garish fluorescent lights.

She tells him she loves him.

The next morning Lindsay let’s Michael borrow one of her blouses; it’s black and white with polka dots and matches his Rooster Teeth hoodie perfectly.

This becomes an unspoken thing as the weeks pass by. Michael will dress up some days, dress down others, and everyone starts to learn to deal with it.

Michael tries not to dress up when cameras are around, sticking to outfits he knows are safe and neutral and masculine. He’s always careful about what he wears we he’s on the podcast and he never leaves accessories on when they film live action stuff for Achievement Hunter. Gavin quits trying to pull the bows out of his hair, Jack no longer chuckles at the blouses, Geoff drops the jokes about the nail polish, and Ray stops flinching at the sound of jangling bangles.

Eventually, Michael feels like he needs a name for himself, like a label to tack on to describe him and how he feels. So he starts doing research. He spends time reading blogs and websites and articles, taking tests and quizzes, until he comes to a conclusion.

Michael Jones is not entirely satisfied with the gender he was assigned at birth.

And it feels really good to come to terms with that, it’s like a sickening pressure that had started to close around his heart is falling away because _Michael Jones is not entirely satisfied with the gender he was assigned at birth_.

There are probably psychological explanations for why he feels this way. Maybe he has a history of desires and behaviors throughout his childhood that hinted at this revelation or maybe this is a new thing, a shift in who he is as a person that just sort of happened because humans are complicated like that.

But the reason behind why Michael feels this way isn’t important. All he knows is that words like “trans” and “nonbinary” and “agender” keep popping up and that there’s one that he likes the most of all. The one that settles on his tongue like his mouth is its home. It nestles in his drawer of pilfered hair accessories and burrows into his closet of borrowed blouses. It sounds so sweet and feels so right because it explains so much about him at this moment in time.

_Genderfluid._

It flows over his tongue like a river and drips from his lips as it quells some sort of frantic burning deep within. This is him. This works for him. It fits for now. It might change somewhere between today and the day he dies, but for right now it’s perfect.

Michael leans back against the headboard of the bed and stares at the glowing screen of his laptop. He runs a thumb under the word he finds so ideal and the pad of his finger creates a faint smudge.

He needs to tell Lindsay. He wants to tell her. But he’s a lazy sack of shit who just found out he’s not a complete freak and Lindsay’s all the way in the kitchen. Part of him doesn’t feel like walking that far; the other part is afraid that his legs will give out if he tries. He doesn’t want to yell because he doesn’t have it in him at this moment, so he shuffles around the bed sheets until he finds his cell phone and texts her.

It’s one word, the word that will probably be his favorite for the rest of the day. He can hear her phone notification chime all the way from the bedroom and waits for the clanging of dishes to stop. When the whole apartment goes eerily quiet, Lindsay pads her way to the bedroom and stands in the doorway. She rests a hand on the doorknob while she clutches her phone with the other, the light illuminating her face. Michael swears that she looks how he feels when she smiles and tells him congratulations. She’s one hundred fucking percent sincere, she’s so glad that he’s finding answers and a sense of belonging and Michael knows, he just fucking _knows_ that he couldn’t have chosen a better person to fall for.

It takes all of four days for Lindsay to bring up shopping.

She’s glad that Michael is exploring his gender and figuring out his identity, really she is, but if he complains about her lack of cute dresses one more time, she swears she’s going to punch him in the throat. Michael responds to her threat by spinning in the mirror and looking at his figure in the borrowed black pencil skirt. Lindsay suggests the mall; maybe Michael will spend less time criticizing her wardrobe once he has one of his own that matches his tastes. Michael mulls over this for a bit before agreeing. After all, it’s not like he doesn’t like Lindsay’s clothes – she looks great in everything – he just isn’t fond of how her clothes look on _him_.

So they spend the afternoon at the mall. It’s busy because it’s a Friday and Lindsay picks the first store; Michael’s glad she does because he’s a little overwhelmed. They peruse the racks and Michael picks up a few items that catch his eye. When Lindsay suggests he try them on in the store, Michael refuses. He digs in his heels and deny deny denies until Lindsay gives in. They leave the first store empty-handed and move on to the next.

They pass a storefront, the display bright and boasting of summer sales, and Michael falls in love with a sundress one of the mannequins is wearing. It’s pink and white, A-line with thick straps and a cutout hem. He drags Lindsay in with him. He has to have that dress.

Michael scours the store high and low for it, declining the aid of a store clerk because goddamn it, he doesn’t need help. It’s right before he contemplates climbing into the window and undressing the mannequin when Michael finds the dress shoved behind several pairs of high waisted shorts. He almost breaks the hanger trying to snatch if off the rack.

Clutching the soft fabric it to his chest, Michael stalks over to the wall of accessories where Lindsay is trying on sunglasses. He stares her down and she flips the glasses on top of her head to stare back. She asks him if he’s found what he’s looking for. He nods. He tells her he’s going to try it on, but she has to come with him. Lindsay kisses Michael’s nose before flipping the sunglasses back over her eyes. She shoots finger guns at him and tells him to lead the way.

The changing room is small and cramped and Michael suddenly feels weird the moment the door clicks shut behind them. Lindsay sits on the seat in the corner, purse in her lap and expression eager. Michael sighs before starting to undress.

The sundress feels smooth and simple as Michael steps into it. The zipper glides almost inaudibly as Lindsay pulls it up.

When Michael turns to look into the mirror, she breathes for what feels like the first time in months.

It fits, that’s the first thing Michael notices, it fits and the way the fabric forms to her body is the greatest thing she has seen in a long time. She swings her hips one way, then the other, watching the hem flare and ripple.

It’s some kind of breakthrough. Michael feels cute and femme and _nice_ , like the days when blouses feel right and bows are preferable to beanies, and now she actually looks it. She lifts the hem of the dress and marvels at how it dips and fans. Lindsay asks Michael what their next plan of action is, whether they are going to purchase this dress or not. Michael nods so hard that her glasses almost fall off her face. Fuck yeah, they’re buying this dress. But not yet; they still have more shopping to do.

Everything after that moment with the first dress is nothing but smiles and cash register chimes. They return home with several bags of items, and Michael is completely stoked with their haul. She holds a mini fashion show in their apartment with Lindsay sitting on the living room couch with a bowl of popcorn. By the end of the night, their closet layout has shifted. There are still jeans and hoodies and beanies and button downs, but dresses and skirts and floral patterns and pastels fill up the spaces in between.

Out of everything they buy that day, Michael’s favorite is the pink sundress with the cutout hem. She wears it to work on Monday with black leggings, matching pink flats, and her RvB hoodie.

No one bats an eye.


End file.
